Markus "Notch" Persson
Markus Alexej "Notch" Persson (born June 1, 1979) is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. Persson is the owner of Mojang, the video game company he founded alongside Carl Manneh and Jakob Porser in late 2010. His principal venture for founding Mojang was Minecraft, a first-person sandbox video game that has gained popularity and support since its tech demo in 2009. Since the release of Minecraft, Persson has gained significant notability within the video game industry, having won multiple awards and establishing relations with the industry's figureheads. Persson retained his position as the lead designer of Minecraft until the game's official launch in 2011, after which he transferred creative authority to Jens Bergensten. Biography Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden to a Finnish mother and a Swedish father. He lived in Ystad for the first seven years of his life. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. Having experimented with various type-in programs he produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. Professionally he had worked as a game developer for King.com for over four years, until 2009. Afterwards he worked as a programmer for Jalbum. He is also one of the founders of Wurm Online, although he no longer works on this game. Outside of work, he has made seven games for competitions for the Java 4K Game Programming Contest such as "Left 4K Dead" and "Mega 4K Man". He has also entered the Ludum Dare competition. He is the central figure of a documentary in development about the rise of Minecraftand Mojang called Minecraft: The Story of Mojang. Games Minecraft Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was released on 18 November 2011.14 Persson quit his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion. In early 2011 Mojang AB sold their one millionth copy of the game, several months later their second, and several more their third. He has recently hired several new staff members to the Minecraftteam. A version for Android and iOS called Pocket Edition has also been released. An Xbox 360 edition of Minecraft was released on May 9, 2012. The Xbox edition also features certain new updates including a tutorial, skin packs, etc.§k Scrolls Persson and Jakob Porser came up with the idea for Scrolls including elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson noted he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porser will be developing it. Persson revealed on his tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish lawyer firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls claiming it conflicted with their The Elder Scrollsseries of games. On 17 August 2011 Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute. On 27 September 2011 Persson confirmed on Twitter that the lawsuit was going to court. Some clarification was made that it is ZeniMax Media, the company owning Bethesda Softworks, who are pushing for the lawsuit. A settlement was reached in March 2012 that allowed Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark. 0x10c Following the end to his involvement with Minecraft, Persson began pre-production of an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day, Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect (parody of Mass Effect), citing thelawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration. However, the gameplay elements remained true and on April 4, Mojang revealed 0x10c as aspace sandbox title. Ludum Dare entries Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions. Breaking the Tower Breaking the Tower was a game Persson created for the entry to the Ludum Dare No. 12 competition. The game was written in two days. The game takes place on a small island, where the player must gather resources, construct buildings, and train soldiers in order to destroy a large tower on this island. The game received brief gaming media attention. Metagun Metagun is a 2D platformer created for Ludum Dare #18. Prelude of the Chambered Prelude of the Chambered is a game Persson created for the entry to the Ludum Dare No. 21 competition. The game had been written in just two days. Prelude of the Chambered is a short first-person dungeon crawler videogame entirely written in Java. Minicraft Minicraft is a game created for Ludum Dare No. 22, held 16–19 December 2011. It is a small top-down game with similarities to Zelda and influenced by Minecraft. It is written in Java. Personal life On August 13, 2011, he married Elin Zetterstrand who goes by the nickname "Ez" in the Minecraft community, and "ezchili" on Twitter.On August 15, 2012, he announced on Twitter that he was now single. He is a member of the Swedish chapter of Mensaand also makes electronica music under the name "Markus Alexei". He has criticized both piracy as well as the stance of large game companies on piracy and he is a member of the Swedish Pirate Party. Persson is an atheist, and cited his theological and moral views as one of the principle donors to Médecins Sans Frontières during the Thanksgiving charity event of 2011. Under his direction, Mojang contributed a week to developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Bundle Mojam, for which the $458,248.99 raised would be donated to charity. Views In May 2012, Persson expressed his views on Twitter towards Electronic Arts and their release of the 'Indie Bundle' calling them a "Bunch of Cynical Bastards". "EA releases an 'indie bundle'? That's not how that works, EA," he said, "Indies are saving gaming. EA is methodically destroying it." On December 19, 2012, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced that Persson had donated $250,000 to the EFF's Defend Innovation project